One of the most important societal changes of recent times has been the emergence of the Internet, more particularly, the World Wide Web (e.g., the Web), as a predominant communications medium. The Web presents a navigable aggregation of Web page content of all the Web connected computers. This navigable aggregation content is linked in such a way as to offer users access to information and documentation, typically in the form of interactive hypermedia, or Web pages. Web pages describe documents in which hypertext links are used connecting a multitude of combinations of graphics, audio, video, and text. Such combinations are often interlinked and interconnected in nonlinear, nonsequential manners.
With the widespread emergence of Internet communications technologies (e.g., the Web), a variety of electronic commerce facilitating schemes were developed. One such scheme involved the use of dedicated Web sites for implementing business-to-business and business-to-consumer buying and selling exchanges on the Internet. The term “electronic commerce” or “e-commerce” originally evolved from remote forms of electronic shopping to mean all aspects of business and market processes enabled by wide area communications networks, namely, the Internet and the World Wide Web based network technologies. E-commerce is a rapidly growing field, and is generally understood to mean doing business on-line or selling and buying products and services through Web (e.g., Internet based) storefronts or through other similar distributed computer networks. In general, electronic commerce is in many ways similar to the more traditional catalog based commerce schemes. The e-commerce exchanges, or e-commerce “storefronts”, have evolved to focus on the specific needs and requirements of buying and selling via one or more Web sites on the Internet.
As the use of e-commerce storefronts have proliferated, increasing amounts of effort and resources are dedicated towards the implementation and maintenance of the numerous Web pages that actually comprise the storefronts. For example, many e-commerce storefronts resemble a form of electronic commerce catalog based buying and selling, or simply electronic catalogs, wherein the user progresses through a series of related Web pages, examining various aspects of articles being considered for purchase. The various types of electronic commerce “catalog-type” Web sites has become a preferred method of efficiently making available in large number of goods and services to a large number of potential buyers. Electronic catalogs provide a convenient means for aggregating large number of potential items for sale and efficiently disseminating information about these items to a large number of potential buyers. However, updating information about the various articles for sale, such as, for example, prices, styles, features, and the like, requires the updating and editing of the numerous Web pages that comprise the Web site storefronts.
In accordance with the prior art, the maintenance of an e-commerce storefront is a specialized task requiring specialized skills and tools. For example, Web site maintenance or updates are usually performed by skilled Web page authors trained to use specialized tools. Web page authors use specialized software such as HTML (hypertext markup language), Java, XML (extensible markup language), and the like, to create and/or update Web pages and to format the various hypermedia links, objects, fields, etc., within the Web pages. Web page authors also use a variety of tools to track the structure of the links between the many Web pages that comprise the Web site. The creation and updating of such large Web sites, having many hundreds of complex interlinked, interrelated Web pages, has become a very technical and manpower intensive undertaking.
Thus, a significant problem exists with regard to the cost-effective management of an e-commerce storefront. The prior art does not provide a store manager user interface which allows the store manager to pick tasks he/she wants to perform (add a product, update product information, change image, change price, etc.) and then allows the user to select the product or product hierarchy to which the changes needs to be applied. The limitation of such changes and updates often requires the rebuilding of the constituent Web pages. Rebuilding Web pages is usually not a cost-effective option. Changes to the hyperlinks of a document, as with changes to the color, tabs, buttons, or the like, often requires completely rebuilding the page. With current Web site authoring tools there exists very tight constraints with regard to the code of the page. It is difficult to simply “cut and paste” changes into the page. Any new hyperlinks have to be verified to ensure the linked to the correct Web pages. Changing hyperlinks introduces the possibility of “breaking” existing hyperlinks from other connected documents. Thus, it becomes expensive to implement changes to, for example, respond to competitors. It becomes expensive to quickly modify a user flow in response to changes in the products.
In addition, any changes which are made have to be verified by accessing the selling via a customer style Web browser in order for the store manager to see exactly what the customer sees. Verification is required in order to ensure the updates having carried out correctly. Mistakes require a new iteration of updates/changes and subsequent re-verification.
Thus, what is required is a solution that allows the easy updating of e-commerce storefront information. The required solution should allow a store manager to change product information (e.g., price, product images, feature information, etc.) in an intuitive manner. The required solution should allow immediate verification of any changes made. The present invention provides a novel solution to the above requirements.